Easy-Bake Robots? 3D-Printed Bots Could Self-Assemble When Heated

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Assembling a future robot could be as simple as heating it up.
Two new studies demonstrate how 3D-printed robots could fold into
shape and assemble themselves after being exposed to heat.

To make a two-dimensional sheet of material assemble
itself into a 3D machine, the researchers used heated sheets
of a type of polymer known as polyvinyl chloride, or PVC. These
sheets of material were placed between two rigid polyester films
that are full of slits.

When heated, the PVC shrinks and the slits eventually shut,
pushing against each other and altering the shape of the PVC.
This process bends the material into different shapes, based on
the pattern of slits and how the heat interacts with the PVC.

As slits of different widths push against each other, the
material will fold into 3D structures, the researchers said.

"You're doing this really complicated global control that moves
every edge in the system at the same time," Daniela Rus, a
professor of engineering and computer science at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge,
Massachusetts, whose group conducted the research, said in a
statement. "You want to design those edges in such a way that the
result of composing all these motions, which actually interfere
with each other, leads to the correct geometric structure."

One of the new studies examines how to create the 2D pattern of
slits that make these
foldable robots possible, while the other discusses building
electrical robot components such as resistors and capacitors from
"self-folding laser-cut materials."

Shuhei Miyashita, a postdoctoral researcher at MIT, specially
designed an aluminum-coated polyester sensor that could be
attached to the robots once they
are fully assembled. The sensor looks like a small accordion,
with folds of material that compress and help electrical currents
pass through the system.